Category Archives: Politics

I Think I’ve Found a Political Windmill Worth Tilting At

Posted on September 17, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

I usually try to keep partisan politics to a tolerable minimum on this blog, and I still intend to. But I had a crazy idea that I wanted to share somewhere other than Twitter. This year, a significant fraction of … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 28 Comments

Light Reading Recommendations for House CJS Appropriators

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Jonathan Goff

Some tweeted comments from the recent House Commerce, Justice, and Science budget markup meeting gave me some ideas for light reading for our esteemed House Appropriators. Specifically, Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) of SpaceNews tweeted that: CJS subcommittee chair Rep. Culberson: bill … Continue reading →

Posted in NASA, Politics, Snark | 3 Comments

A Modest Proposal: the COTS Approach to SLS/Orion

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Jonathan Goff

I came up with an interesting new idea based on the recent press conferences about the successful completion of NASA’s COTS program, Bigelow’s report on the study they did on commercial lunar development, and the SLS/Orion developers discussion of “Removing … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, COTS, Launch Vehicles, NASA, Politics, Space Exploration, Space Policy, Space Transportation, Technology | 22 Comments

Syria

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Jonathan Goff

I’ve already vented some of my opinions on Twitter, but I figured that for the record, it was worth stating on my blog how asinine I think the current push for war in Syria is. The number of innocents who … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 27 Comments

Random Political Observations: Bad Men vs. Bad Policies

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Jonathan Goff

I usually try to avoid non-space political posts when I can, especially when I’ve been blogging so infrequently on what I consider to be the core focus of Selenian Boondocks. But, it’s silly season in America right now, and I … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 3 Comments

Random Observation on SEC Accredited Investor Rules and the Top 1%

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Jonathan Goff

I was reading an interesting article the other day that had to do with the OWS movement giving some data on the background of the “top 1%” and the “top 0.5%”.  Can’t say I agree with everything in this article, … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Politics | 9 Comments

The ITAR/Immigration Bifecta of Suck

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Jonathan Goff

I know I’ve written about this topic before, but I think it’s worth bringing it up again. When you combine the stupidity of ITAR as it exists with the difficulty of getting even a green-card for your typical foreign engineering … Continue reading →

Posted in ITAR, Politics, Space Policy | 34 Comments

Amusing Observation: SpaceX and HEFT Report Page 38

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Jonathan Goff

So, a group of rocket engineers starts making claims about how they’re going to revolutionize the industry and deliver a vehicle for far less than has been the traditional norm. When asked how they are going to do this, they … Continue reading →

Posted in NASA, Politics, Snark, Space Policy, SpaceX | 15 Comments

Surrender in Space?

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Jonathan Goff

I know I shouldn’t take anything Mark Whittington writes seriously, but I want to write about a stupid meme that smarter people than Mark have also been bandying about–that somehow Obama’s budget proposal would surrender our leadership in space to … Continue reading →

Posted in NASA, Politics, Snark, Space Policy | 33 Comments

SpaceX Prediction

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Jonathan Goff

I predict that regardless of the outcome of SpaceX’s inaugural Falcon 9 launch, nobody is going to change their opinion. If it’s successful, Ares-huggers will suddenly begin to understand the concept that a single successful flight doesn’t prove anything about … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, Politics, Snark, SpaceX | 75 Comments